Using the torch to light my path, I chased him. He’d haunted me for far too long. This needed to end. With light, sure steps, I charged into the forest, hopping over tangled roots and fallen limbs, dodging sharp branches, ignoring the pounding of my heart as I hunted the hunter.
When I finally broke free of the thick, tangled trees, I found myself in a peaceful meadow. Jonathan was gone. I’d lost him.
But what I found instead more than made up for it.
Tears sprung to my eyes, and I extinguished and dropped my torch, blinking rapidly in the darkness until my vision adjusted, bringing them back into view.
“Emilio,” I whispered. “Liam.”
In the meadow before my white stone altar, Liam was on his knees beside my wolf. He looked as if he’d been there for hours, and now he stretched out a hand toward me, beckoning me forward.
“Hurry, Gray,” he said, the urgency in his voice turning my blood cold. “There isn’t much time.”
“Time?” I crept closer, my muscles suddenly stiff with fear. Why wasn’t Emilio moving? Was that… was that fresh blood on the ground? He still appeared to be trapped between his human and wolf forms, just like he had been at the warehouse. Why hadn’t he shifted fully?
Why hadn’t he healed?
Wordlessly I knelt down beside Liam and reached for Emilio’s hand. He looked just like he had earlier tonight—gravely injured, caught between forms, carved up and poisoned by Orendiel’s silver blade. But the face that had writhed in pain before had long since gone slack, and his skin was cold and clammy. His eyes were open, but they were glassy and vacant, holding no sign of the man I loved. No spark of life.
“Time for what?” I pressed, though I was pretty sure I knew the answer. My stomach was already twisting at the possibility, heart thudding in my throat.
Liam turned to me, human but for the glowing blue eyes and a faint pulse of silver-blue light emanating from his skin.
A soul,I realized. He was holding Emilio’s soul.
Tears filled Liam’s otherworldly eyes, and he reached for my face, touching it so sweetly and gently, it almost shattered my heart. He shook his head and closed his eyes, and the words came out slow and strangled. “It’s… time to say goodbye, little witch. I’m so sorry.”
Nine
DARIUS
Ronan had nearly worn a groove in the living room floor with his incessant pacing, and if there weren’t so many warm bodies in the way, I might’ve joined him. It’d been hours since Gray and Haley had sequestered themselves in the guest room, and other than a muffled conversation early on, we’d heard nothing. Saw nothing. No news. No updates. No sign of success or trouble but the iridescent glow of magic leaking out beneath the gap at the bottom of the door.
A trickle of worry crept down my spine, but I refused to let it take hold. Refused to show even a fraction of outward concern. The others wouldn’t understand; in the wake of my memory loss, their claim on her heart felt much more legitimate than mine. But while my mind was unable to remember her presence in my life, some deeper part of medidremember. I felt it more and more the longer I spent in her presence.
And right now, that part of me wanted nothing more than to break down the bedroom door.
I glanced at the closed door down the hall, but the sentinel posted outside of it shook his head. Asher had taken Gray’s demands seriously; he and the hounds would maim anyone who attempted to disturb her.
“Perhaps she’s traveled to her realm,” I reasoned aloud. “It’s the most logical explanation, is it not?”
Ronan grunted something that might have been an agreement, though I couldn’t be certain. “That thought doesn’t bring me any peace,” he said. “The freakshow hunter who’s tried to kill her at least a dozen times already is supposedly running wild out there. She may as well have a target painted on her back.”
“Liam will protect her.”
Another grunt. “I don’t like it. We should be there with her.”
“Hmm.” I rubbed my fingers over the stubble on my jaw. “My recollection is a bit hazy, but it’s my understanding that the last time we tracked her to another realm, things went a bit sideways on us.”
He stopped pacing long enough to glare at me, clearly not appreciating my attempt at humor.
“Regardless,” I said. “We all know that when Gray sets her mind to something—”
Ronan’s grunt turned into a growl, his eyes blackening as he stormed past me on his hundredth trek across the hardwood floor. “Don’t tell me what I know, vampire. You can’t even tell me whatyouknow.”
“I’m not sure I appreciate your tone, demon.”
“No? Then why don’t you take your smug face and your perfect little accent and go… I don’t know. Go shove a scone up your arse.”
